sonar-rules-extractor 1.1

Coding rules extractor into the Sonar format.

.. -*- restructuredtext -*-

======================================
Sonar Quality Analysis Rules Extractor
======================================

What is the Sonar Rules Extractor?
==================================

The extractor is a tool that extracts the violation rules from analysis tools like Cppcheck,
C++Test, Klocwork, etc. and converts them into Sonar rules.

Why converting those rules into Sonar rules?
============================================

When we are doing a conformity analysis of coding rules, the output of this analysis gives us
a link between the line of the source file where the rule has been violated and the ``ID`` of
this violated rule. An association between a rule ``ID`` and its description has to be given to
Sonar.

To take into account all the custom rules developed in the quality analysis tools, it is
necessary to have a utility which exports those tools' rules. **The Sonar Rules Extractor is there
for that.**

.. note:: Sonar has by default five kinds of rule severity: ``Blocker``, ``Critical``, ``Major``,
``Minor``, ``Info``. But it is not the case for all the analysis tools. For example, in Klocwork,
the severities are represented by numbers : 1 (Critical) to 10 (Info).

The *Sonar Rules Extractor* will have a mapping of those levels so they mean something to Sonar.

How to install it?
==================

If you have Python **setuptools** already installed and have a direct internet connection, you just need
to run the following command: ::

root@localhost:~# easy_install -O2 sonar-rules-extractor

If Python **setuptools** is not installed, please install it first.

If you don't have a direct connection to the internet, download a package suitable to your distribution
and install it. ::

root@localhost:~# tar zxvf sonar-rules-extractor*.tar.gz
...
root@localhost:~# cd sonar-rules-extractor*
root@localhost:~# python setup.py install -O2
...
root@localhost:~#

For windows users who don't want to run the command line installer, there is a native ``.exe`` package.

How to extract rules from code analysis tools?
==============================================

The **Sonar Rules Extractor** comes with a command line tool ``sonar-rules-extractor``. You can run it
with the ``--help`` option to get info. ::

root@localhost:~# sonar-rules-extractor --help
Usage: sonar-rules-extractor [options] tool <input args...>

<input args...> depend on the tool. Generally, if no args are provided,
standard input is read.

Options:
--version show program's version number and exit
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-p MODULE, --plugin=MODULE
Before extraction, import the specified module and
look for classes that inherit "Extractor" which can be
used in addtion to the built-in ones. This option can
be used multiple times.
-f, --format-xml Pretty format XML output.
-l, --list-tools List all available tools.

You can get the list of available supported tools with this command: ::

root@localhost:~# sonar-rules-extractor --list-tools
pylint, klocwork, cpptest, gnatcheck, qac, qacpp, cppcheck, logiscope

Here is an example extraction for PyLint: ::

root@localhost:~# pylint --list-msgs | sonar-rules-extractor pylint --format-xml > pylint-sonar-rules.xml
root@localhost:~# cat pylint-sonar-rules.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!--EXTRACTED "pylint" RULES FOR SONAR-->
<rules>
<rule key="C0102" priority="INFO">
<name>
<![CDATA[Black listed name "%s"]]> </name>
<configKey>
<![CDATA[C0102]]> </configKey>
<category name="Reliability"/>
<description>
<![CDATA[Used when the name is listed in the black list (unauthorized names).]]> </description>
</rule>
<rule key="C0103" priority="INFO">
<name>
<![CDATA[Invalid name "%s" (should match %s)]]> </name>
.......
<name>
<![CDATA[Format string dictionary key should be a string, not %s]]> </name>
<configKey>
<![CDATA[W1300]]> </configKey>
<category name="Reliability"/>
<description>
<![CDATA[Used when a format string that uses named conversion specifiers is used with a dictionary whose keys are not all strings.]]> </description>
</rule>
</rules>